Term Paper on "Bureaucracy and Power in Human Service Organizations"

Term Paper 11 pages (2761 words) Sources: 1+

[EXCERPT] . . . .

bureaucracy AND POWER

HUMAN SERVICES ORGANISATIONS

Even though Bureaucracy gives an impression of governmental departments like taxation, and welfare, it is actually found in almost every public spheres. Corporations, churches, the military, labor and trade unions, community centers, schools, hospitals all are essentially facilitated by certain bureaucratic components. Most people take them as important part of their lives, though not readily. However the best part of bureaucracy is that it provides a set of rules and procedures to set everything running in a proper order, transparently, and also ensures consistency and fairness acceptable to all. This paper will focus on evaluating the organizational and power structures while emphasizing the need for refurbishing Human Service Organization in Australia on the lines of Bureaucratic organizations.

Introduction

The rapidly evolving nature of welfare state and the changing concept of social service have been recognized both internationally and within Australia. Economic rationalist concept and the resultant reconstruction of state responsibilities have been complimented by the offset of private sector managerial agendas in non-profit organizations. At present, Australian government is contractually promoting the transfer of social responsibilities to the non-profit and private sectors. The non-profit human services sector provides the largest share of community services to Australia. The for-profit sector too is acing with an appreciative growth rate. The non-profit sector grew by 10% since 1996 while the for-profit sector grew by 32%. The parameters were kept in view to the number of government organisations that remained the same (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2002). The out-sourcing of government services and the offset of competitive tendering has placed non-profit organisations and their clients within an economic paradigm; which has transformed non-profit organisations into service providers, clients into valued customers and user demand and rivalry, as the market forces. All these factors have impressed a profound impact on accession and quality of the services provided. Micro-economic reforms have influenced the responsibilities of paid and unpaid managers and are being extensively analysed for more appropriate organisational and managerial models (Rees 1995, Jackson and Donovan 1999). Further analysis is underway to revamp the service providers so to enable them to handle large governmental contracts efficiently. Their processes need to be further analysed and redesigned for the enhancement of customer satisfaction capabilities.

Background

For the renovation of the existing organizational structure of Human Service Organizations in Australia, we need to understand the mechanism of an organizational structure and the power politics. According to Taylor, Fayol, Weber and other classical theorists, there is only a singular way to structure an organization in an ideal manner. But in reality organizations vary considerably in structure. However, in comparison to the classical scholars, most theorists today believe that there is no singular way to organize. What is more important is if a pattern suits the requirements of the organization's structure, its magnitude, technology and environment. Some organizational theorists today argue that the classical hierarchical, bureaucratic model of organizations was misinterpreted and wrongly implemented since it was not meant to be a rigid and inflexible type of structure. Instead, the hierarchical bureaucracy was an example of the structural form conceived by political strategy of rational-legal domination (Richard, 1983). Conversely, some of the original theories of classical hierarchical structure may contain implications for modern organizational theory. In this regard, the work of Chester Barnard (1938) is considered to be a breakthrough in classical thinking on organizational structure. He defined formal organization as a system of consciously coordinated activities of two or more persons. People and system are given main emphasis in this famously quoted example. Hence the importance of people in the organizations has been acknowledged and they, not bars on an organizational chart, are regarded as vital component of a formal organization.

Today in Australia, few researchers believe that non-profit organisations need to change with the emerging socio-political and economic climate of welfare provision (Steane1999 and Mc Donald 1997). There is a conflict of opinion between researchers and practitioners as to how and what kind of change is required. Alongside, sectorial peak organisations believe in the introduction of contracts instead of grants, as competitive tendering wherein organisations have to bid for money. However, the introduction of new systems has been promoted without reluctance of benefit or loss in the prevailing situation of non-profit management, in order to develop a rational management strategy. To increase the functionality and proficiency of non-profit human services organisations under the new scenario, a number of propositions are being considered. Many are considering bureaucratic system of organizational structure as an effective and practical approach available specially to make themselves comfortable with governmental organizations that are also configured on similar pattern.

The Bureaucracy - Pros and Cons

There is a lot of controversy about the framework of bureaucracy; it is something that is more symptomatic than rigidly defined. Irony is that a concept that imposes inflexible rules and procedures is in itself something that is confined by properties. For instance some of its most commonly recognized properties are the waste of time, effort and money. It is regarded as erosion of resources, and an impediment for most enterprises. To understand bureaucracy, one needs to understand history, psychology, management and most importantly, people. Max Weber (1864-1920) is one of the strongest proponents of the bureaucratic model. He termed this organizational form as a 'rational-legal system'. The framework for operation based on authority under a set of rules and procedures and the 'offices' people occupy. The catch phrase in all this is 'consistency' and the whole system is completely risk reluctant. According to him this is the most technically sound system. Its major characteristics are: "precision, speed, un-ambiguity, knowledge of files, discretion, continuity, unity, strict subordination, reduction of friction and of material and personal costs." (Weber: 214)

Hence consistency is the basic principle of the bureaucratic form. It is ensured by the stiff and firm application of rules to all 'problems' alike. The element of uncertainty is hence eliminated from all aspects gradually and automatically. Bureaucracy is thought to control large organizations and direct the work of 'ordinary' people, serve as a medium of communication, and help in 'specialization' and division of labor. A large hierarchy, with strong and elevated vertical segregation, is best suited for a bureaucratic orientation. Hierarchies are essential; the lower the vertical differentiation is more responsive it will be. Thus 'flat' organizations with less vertical elevation and more horizontal width is more responsive, but if the people in a flat organization are not 'empowered' sufficiently, decreasing the chain becomes useless. Other implication of flat structure is that it is unable to handle large organizations with a diverse scope.

One of the major administrative foundations for the creation of bureaucracy is the exception principle. Therein only important and complex problems reach the higher ups while trivial routine issues are solved by the people in the lower levels. Programmed decisions are implemented automatically in accordance with the predefined operating procedures and the unusual problems requiring major decisions are routed to the top. This should make the hierarchy more effective. However there are problems related to the delegation and motivation in bureaucracy; delegating authority and power is not an easy task. It requires immense confidence in sub-ordinates and an immaculate efficacy of the system.

Rules are just as strict as the procedures. People in the system therefore tend to avoid risk as much as possible. Instead of exercising the powers vested in them, workers in the lower echelons of hierarchy, often begin to forward problems to their superiors just to cover for themselves. The rigidity of rules inhibits them from taking risks and initiatives. There may be no second chances. A person with a flawless career may get penalized for a petty issue due to the exception principle.

It is important to acknowledge that bureaucracy was created to exclude the impact of leadership on the system; which is why rules and procedures were rigid. Leadership through an individual persona became downright redundant since it would amount to solution of problems in a way different from standing operating procedures. Moreover, this may bring in new and undesirable results. Apart from generating uncertainty it was also against the basic principle of bureaucracy, that is consistency.

The Power

In bureaucracy, the delegation of authority needs to be absolutely flawless and the principle of parity must be observed. Disappointingly the principle has been followed so rigidly that the present day bureaucrat finds him self simply inadequate for present scenarios. Here is where empowerment comes in play. Empowerment is defined as the 'recognizing and releasing into the organization the power that people have in their wealth of useful knowledge and internal motivation' (Randolph, 1994). It is the authority to make decisions within one's paradigms of responsibility, independently. Although empowerment is similar to traditionally delegated authority, it has two unique characteristics. Firstly employees are encouraged to use their own initiative. Secondly, empowered employees are given along the authority, appropriate resources, enabling them to make decisions and get them implemented. Major disadvantage of such a delegation is that empowerment is… READ MORE

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